


rifle on the wall

by vois



Series: fe:a crossover [1]
Category: Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu | The Legend of the Legendary Heroes
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fire Emblem Fusion, Denyuuden AU Week 2020, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:49:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24744121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vois/pseuds/vois
Summary: In the heart of Ylisstol, unbeknownst to anyone, the Fell Dragon plots a murder. There's no great hero here to stop him. But no great hero would try, even if they knew. After all...The only death he's planning is his own.
Relationships: Sion Astal/Ryner Lute
Series: fe:a crossover [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789285
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	rifle on the wall

Sion's going to kill him.

It's not just because he submitted a subpar report this time, or that he slacked off during the day and ended up cutting into their candle supply… Sion really is going to kill him. He doesn't know it yet, but Ryner understands.

He's understood it ever since the first time he saw a heretic's body in a ditch. If that was what Ylisse did to Grima's followers, and not even actual priests, then… 

When Ryner first travelled to Ylisse he'd been hoping for… an audience with the Exalt? What had he been thinking? It all feels so far away now. So silly. 

He'd thought he could stop a war in its tracks, before it even began. But when has anything ever gone according to plan? 

"Don't worry," he'd said to Kiefer before he left. "And tell Tiir not to worry either." Kiefer was only half-Plegian and spent a lot of time going back and forth across the border. She'd tried to dissuade Ryner but Ryner had been stubborn. When she'd given up without much more pressing, Ryner had thought that maybe because of her heritage, she had more experience and more hope for it. Maybe she had more hope, more than even him, for an outcome without bloodshed. But maybe it actually meant that she understood better than anyone else that it was hopeless.

If that was the case, then maybe Kiefer would have skipped a step and just told Tiir that he was dead, too. It would explain why Tiir hadn't chased him down somehow. Unlike Kiefer, Tiir was a full-blooded Plegian. No, he wasn't just that. He was descended from a prestigious lineage of Grimleal priests, too. He was as Plegian as you could get, and had the magic to show it. The reason Ryner hadn't said goodbye to him was complicated. While they'd never pitted their powers against each other before, at least not fully, Tiir was strong enough that restraining Ryner would be plausible and he'd know it. He was definitely stubborn enough to try and keep Ryner there by force if he thought he was going on a suicide mission. 

If they fought, Ryner would win in the end. Now that his brand was so dark, it was a sure thing. But even back then, he would have come out on top eventually. He didn't want to leave Tiir on terms like that, restrained by sone hex and having to watch Ryner's back shrinking into the horizon. 

But while his last conversation with Kiefer had been of reassurance and worry, in comparison… actually, Ryner couldn't remember the last time he and Tiir had spoken about anything serious.

"..."

He and Tiir were too high-profile to keep in the same place for long. Sometimes they crossed paths in temples, but for the most part they were several cities apart. When they did meet, they were rarely alone, unless they'd happened to sneak away to help the same orphanage. His father said they both had important work to do, important work in separate places, but Ryner was learning to discount what his father said.

It was kind of silly. Ryner went through his desk himself because Kiefer didn't have the magic to deal with the hexed locks, Tiir didn't have Kiefer's subtlety, and unlike them he wouldn't get in too much trouble even if he was caught. When Ryner had found those letters to the Exalt's advisor he'd been so excited. He'd been so convinced that peace was an option and that there could be a happy end. And he'd been convinced his father had the same goal.

But then he crossed the border and fought some bandits and got roped in with a lady called Ferris, and the militia she led in the Exalt's name. And he met the Exalt too, of course. Ryner had even got that audience he'd hoped for against all odds, except he couldn't say anything.

Because he'd already understood it by then. He'd already seen.

...seriously, couldn't he do anything…?

He was the wings of ruin. He was the breath of despair. Shouldn't he be able to do more than this? If Ryner was really a god made flesh like his father said, then why couldn't he even manage something like this? His dad liked to tell Ryner he was meant for more than the world could offer, but did that have to mean he could only destroy it?

If that was the case, then… then it wasn't a choice at all, really. Ryner would just have to die. But he couldn't just kill himself. He could imagine Ferris and Sion's shocked faces if they came across his body. He could imagine them blaming themselves or insisting it was a setup and running themselves ragged trying to find a murderer that didn't exist in the world anymore. The priests back home would probably assume the same, and even if they didn't, they'd sure act like it. A martyr would make the war drag on longer for sure. And what if they got their hands on his body to revive it? Ryner had no idea if Risen magic could work on someone like him. What insurance did he have that they wouldn't just pick up and keep going with the apocalypse?

So Ryner had to make sure that he stayed dead. There were legendary weapons that could do that, and Falchion was with Ferris just a few rooms over. But could Ryner really do it? Could he really look Sion in the eye and confess that he betrayed… no, that from the very start, his very existence was betraying Sion? 

Sion was the Exalt. Even if Ferris was the one to wield Falchion, she kept it in a scabbard and never used its blessings to keep from burning her hands. So he needed to get Falchion awakened and in Sion's hands instead. How was he supposed to do that? Naga's holy site wasn't even on this continent and they had a war to fight…

Ryner groaned and put his head down, not caring if ink smudged onto his face from where he'd been editing a map. Planning his own death was so much more work than he'd expected. Back in Plegia, sometimes his father would frown at someone, and then Tiir and Kiefer would leave quietly and come back quieter, and that someone would never reappear. Ryner had thought of it like a strange trick, like pulling rabbits from a hat. Then he'd realized what was happening and it was more convenient to pretend he hadn't. 

Geez… if only he could leave this death in his father's hands, too. Say what you like, but the man was efficient. It was just a shame that the world was set up this way, with Falchion over here and anyone who'd be good at using it over there.

But, say, what if Ryner didn't need a holy weapon? If the problem was preventing his resurrection, then… even the best necromancer couldn't resurrect a pile of ashes. 

He thought again about Tiir. About when they fought, even if they were both holding back. About the persistence that he used to think was annoying, and the resilience he never had. Kiefer would never kill him, even if he asked, or ordered it as her god. But Tiir might. Or at the very least, if Ryner could get him to fight at full strength and then just… let it happen, Tiir would survive that. He was a survivor. More than anyone else, he could survive the guilt of killing Ryner. It wasn't like with Sion. Tiir didn't have friends who would be mad at him on Ryner's behalf, since they ran in different circles entirely. Sion would push forward like the Exalt he was, like he always did, but his friendship with Ferris would probably be bent out of shape forever.

He'd keep going anyways. Through the pain, through the desire to regret. He wouldn't allow himself those feelings, because that was how Sion always did things. 

But Ryner didn't want that for him.

Maybe it was selfish to think that, even as Ryner contemplated how to best die by a lover's hands. But he'd been selfish before. He could be again.

Just once again, and then…

"..."

Ryner could see it, in his head. The people of Ylisse dancing and singing, throwing flowers for the heroic Exalt who slew the Fell Dragon just like a legend come again. And Sion, smiling through it all, like he wasn't hurting. He wondered who would remember that Sion was hurting.

He wondered… if anyone would know it wasn't a happy end.

**Author's Note:**

> the original idea was to write ferris investigating ryners apparent suicide, but i have never written a murder mystery before, plus i realized thatd leave a lot of holes if he was the vessel of grima after all, so that idea is wip and you get to have this prelude to it instead.


End file.
